Defense: Psychic's clients made up story to get money back

Rose Marks, now 62, of Fort Lauderdale, is shown in this 2011 photograph, arriving for a hearing at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach. Mark Randall, South Florida Sun Sentinel

Rose Marks, now 62, of Fort Lauderdale, is shown in this 2011 photograph, arriving for a hearing at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach. Mark Randall, South Florida Sun Sentinel (Mark Randall / Sun Sentinel SoFlaShare)

If it's hard to believe that unhappy clients continued to send huge sums of money to a psychic who promised she would return their cash but stiffed them instead, Rose Marks' defense attorney offered an alternative theory to jurors Friday.

The alleged victims, Fred Schwartz suggested, were satisfied customers who willingly gave up their money for services they wanted.

They only changed their minds, he said, when they discovered they might get some money back if they testified that Marks had promised to return their money – transforming the transaction from a harmless service to a criminal fraud.

If Marks, 62, of Fort Lauderdale, is convicted of masterminding a multi-million dollar fraud on clients of the psychic and fortune-telling businesses she and her family ran in Fort Lauderdale, Manhattan and Virginia, she could go to prison and owe the alleged victims as much as $25 million.

One former client, Sylvia Roma, told jurors this week that she gave $500,000 in cash and gold coins to Marks between 1997 and 2002, when Marks told her the money and gold had burned in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Roma testified she was stunned when Marks told her that the assets, that Roma insisted she was told would be returned, had burned inside the vault where they were stored. Roma, of Houston, who is in her late 50s, said she became extremely upset and asked Marks why the items weren't insured.

But Roma later resumed working with Marks and gave her another $300,000 in cash and gold – plus jewelry – that she again trusted Marks would return to her when Marks finished doing "the work" to clear a curse from Roma's family and help her with her personal and work life.

"Miss Roma, isn't it a fact that Rose never told you that you'd get the money back," Schwartz asked.

"No, that is not a fact at all," Roma replied.

Did she change her story and "become a victim" when she learned it might get some of her money back, Schwartz prodded.

"Absolutely not," Roma said.

Schwartz tried to attack Roma's character with a series of allegations that Roma denied. He also questioned why, if she was wronged, she invited Marks and her husband to stay at Roma's Texas home while Marks' husband was battling terminal brain cancer in 2005 or 2006. Roma said it was the right thing to do but the couple never stayed with her.

Roma said Marks only returned $22,000 and she identified about 30 pieces of jewelry that she said belonged to her among items seized from Marks' home.

While she was a sporadic client of Marks, in 2002 or 2003, Roma said she lost another $150,000 or so in cash, gift cards and two pieces of artwork by former Beatle John Lennon to an unrelated psychic in Texas who refused to return her assets and disappeared.

Schwartz asked Roma why such an intelligent woman, who had held executive positions and now works as a consultant, continued to send money and valuables. He also questioned why she had exhaustive records and precise recollections, yet couldn't produce a receipt for valuable diamond earrings she said belonged to her.

As she left the witness stand, Roma glared at Marks, who remained calm.

Though the trial's first week was filled with tales of tragedy, loneliness and woe, Friday brought some lighter moments.

Paul Hughes, 48, of Rockville, Md., told jurors he lost $20,000 to the Marks family between 1996 and 2004. He also spent some time at their home, he said and clearly harbored fond recollections of one family member: their pet dog.

"Yes, I did take care of Skippy," he said.

And his explanation for his spelling errors on a receipt he wrote in 1996 brought smiles and prolonged laughter from everyone in the courtroom: "If I was a mouse, I couldn't spell cheese."